Conservatives elect Czech Eurosceptic as their new leader

Jan Zahradil, the Eurosceptic candidate, beat Timothy Kirkhope by a margin of two-to-one

Jan Zahradil, a cerebral Czech conservative, has become the new leader of the ECR Group in the European Parliament. He won the election handsomely, attracting majority support from all the national components.

Jay-Z is a fine politician and a fine man: a free-marketeer, a Eurosceptic, a libertarian, a flinty Czech patriot who is also a committed Anglophile and Atlanticist. He is a serious rock aficionado (as the merest glance at his Facebook page reveals) and will happily chat for hours about Led Zeppelin or Lynyrd Skynyrd. I am, admittedly, biased: Jan has been my friend since before either of us was elected to the European Parliament, and I spent years persuading him to stand for the leadership. Still, even his political opponents generally like him: he's that sort of chap.

Not that this will stop some Leftist newspapers from continuing their absurd – sometimes downright deranged – campaign to portray the ECR as extreme. If the Pope were to give the group his blessing, the Guardian's headline would be "Tory link to Hitler Youth".

So what will the Europhiles say about Jan? It won't be easy to make him out as a Neanderthal: he speaks six languages and is liberal about immigration and gay equality. So far, the best that his detractors have come up with is that he is a "climate change sceptic", by which they mean that he deviates in parts from the Rio-Kyoto-Copenhagen-Cancun agenda. Then again, Jan is a trained scientist whose university thesis was about the effects of pollution: he has not formed his opinions lightly. If he is a sceptic, it is in the literal sense of being unwilling to accept assertions without supporting evidence. That, of course, is why he was so quick to see through the Brussels racket.

UPDATE: The semi-official Brussels media outlets, taking their cue from a fantastically dim Labour MEP called Glenis Wilmott, are trying to spin the idea that this was a defeat for the British Tories because – shock, horror – a foreigner won. In fact, it is clear from the numbers that Jan won the support of a majority of British Conservative MEPs. Being evidently less xenophobic than some of our Labour colleagues, we vote for people as individuals rather than on the basis of what it says on their passports.

FURTHER UPDATE: The prize for the unintentionally funniest blog of the day goes to Left Foot Forward.